After three extravagant and costly days of trying to “save the world” at the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, the final outcomes were announced to the world. More than $500 billion was pledged to the so-called “sustainability” cause by governments, Big Business, and multilateral development banks. Also, a 50-page agreement bizarrely dubbed “The Future We Want” was adopted by virtually every national government on Earth. It was hardly everything UN supporters had sought, but progress was certainly made on moving their vision forward.

The UN Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development offered a great deal of insight into the forces working together against national sovereignty, private property, individual liberty, and economic freedom. Big business was there — mostly begging for more government control and taxpayer money. A wide assortment of tax-funded “non-governmental organizations” — known as NGOs for short — was there, too. Unsurprisingly, they mostly demanded more government control.

Finally, no UN conference would be complete without member governments — a chance for Western powers to mingle with a gaggle of dictators and mass murderers styling themselves “presidents.” They all found plenty to agree on.

RIO DE JANEIRO — During the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in late June, Christ the Redeemer was illuminated using bright green lights. It was a fitting symbol for the controversial summit in more ways than one. Along with other information like the summit being led by a Chinese Communist, various UN reports calling for less people and more poverty, and much more, the true agenda behind global "sustainability" became clear — and it was not solving poverty or protecting the environment.

The federal government has done such a bang-up job of picking winners in the “clean energy” field here at home (see, e.g., Solyndra) that it is now planning to spend $20 million of taxpayers’ money on similar projects in Africa — with “hundreds of millions of dollars” to follow, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

RIO DE JANEIRO – A scandalous publicity stunt that saw Rio’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue turned green for the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development backfired big time, UN critic and environmental realist Lord Christopher Monckton told The New American in an exclusive interview under the monument after the “sustainability” summit ended. And the Marxist-minded “environmental religion,” as he called it, failed spectacularly in its ongoing effort to displace Christianity.

Throughout the Rio+20 meetings, Christ the Redeemer — standing tall atop Corcovado Mountain, overlooking the city with arms outstretched — was lit up using bright green lights; transformed into a controversial UN propaganda scheme that saddened countless Christians. But analysts and critics, many of whom were outraged, said it was a fitting symbol for the international summit in more ways than one.

On the last day of the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, virtually every national government and dictatorship on Earth signed an agreement dubbed “The Future We Want.” The “We,” of course, did not include regular citizens — it was mostly a coalition UN functionaries, dictators, tax-funded environmentalist organizations, and Big Business bosses seeking to profit at taxpayer expense.

The final document was a far cry from sweeping deals like the UN’s “Agenda 21” reached at the original Earth Summit two decades ago — especially because not much concrete progress was made in advancing the global body’s vision. But it was important, with concerned analysts noting that the document reiterates support for numerous controversial principles including attacks on national sovereignty, private-property rights, and what remains of the free market.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Communist Chinese diplomat Sha Zukang, in his capacity as Secretary General of the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, announced hundreds of “commitments” by governments and businesses on so-called “sustainability” worth more than half a trillion dollars. And incredibly, much of the audience — supposedly unbiased members of the media — applauded in delight.

The significant UN announcement at the final major summit press conference included few details about the actual agreements or their implications. For the most part, Zukang and other conference speakers simply offered vague generalities about building a “sustainable” world for a “better future,” saying governments and businesses around the world had agreed to undertake massive “sustainability” efforts — a term with a definition that remains in flux.

RIO DE JANEIRO — Lord Christopher Monckton told The New American in an exclusive interview Saturday that the United Nations' Rio+20 conference that concluded the day before was not about saving the planet from environmental devastation or about eradicating poverty. Instead, he said, it was about shackling the planet under a global government. He also optimistically stressed that the "pointy heads here in Rio" have failed despite their declaration of success and that "the game is up."

From his vantage point at the United Nations' Rio+20 sustainability summit in Rio de Janeiro, The New American's foreign correspondent Alex Newman notes that the global environmental agenda "is becoming increasingly clear" — from reducing the world's population and spreading abortion worldwide, to gaining more control over the economy and more power to allocate resources.

RIO DE JANEIRO – As the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development came to a close Friday with the approval of a highly controversial agreement by world governments, Organizing Partner Kiara Worth of the UN sustainability commission’s Major Group for Children and Youth was supposed to read a short statement on behalf of so-called “civil society” to the delegates.

But according to the young South African activist, she was told that there was no time — “essentially meaning that civil society has no voice here at the conference,” she said as representatives of governments and assorted dictatorships shuffled by with smiles on their faces. So instead of reading the speech to the planet’s “sustainability” dignitaries, she read it to The New American and answered a few questions.